CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Browns Pro Bowl center Alex Mack has agreed to the general terms of a five-year offer sheet from the Jaguars that would make him the highest paid center in the NFL, league sources told cleveland.com.

Mack would average somewhere in the neighborhood of $9 million a year, a source said. The deal would also include roughly $22 million guaranteed.

Final details of the offer sheet are being ironed out, and once that happens, Mack will sign the deal, which could be Thursday or Friday.

The Browns will then have five business days to match it under terms of the transition tag.

For Mack to replace Carolina's Ryan Kalil as the league's highest paid center, he'd have to surpass Kalil's average of $8.186 million a year. Other top centers in the league are in the $6 million- to $7 million-a-year range.

At $9 million to $10 million a year, Mack would be the highest paid center by far, and he'd be making left tackle money. Browns seven-time Pro Bowler Joe Thomas averages $11.5 million a year, and has a base salary of $10.9 million in 2014.

Sources have said the deal is structured in such a way that the Browns might not want to match it, but the club is committed to wrapping Mack up to a long-term deal and it would take a lot to make them walk away.

Profootballtalk's Mike Florio reported that the deal pays out $18 million to $20 million over the first two years, and $27 million over three, which is in line with the approximate $9 million a year average reported by cleveland.com. Florio also reports that Mack can void the deal after two years, meaning he can walk away after pocketing $20 million for 2014 and 2015.

But the Browns are unlikely to let Mack go for the extra few million dollars a year.

Browns owner Jimmy Haslam, who flew to California last month with other key members of the organization to try to sign Mack to a long-term contract, indicated Tuesday that he'll match any offer the Jaguars come up with.

“We remain optimistic that Alex Mack will be a Cleveland Brown for a long time,'' Haslam said on the "orange carpet'' at the local premiere of Draft Day at Cinemark Valley View theaters. "We want him to be. I think we’ve made it very clear that he’s the kind of person, the kind of player we want in our organization.”

Asked specifically if he'd match any offer the Jaguars devise, he smiled and said, "We want Alex to be a Cleveland Brown.”

Mack's close friend Joe Thomas, who also attended the local premiere of the Browns-based movie, was also confident his linemate will be wearing orange and brown again in 2014.

"Well, there’s no doubt that he’ll be here at least this year,'' said Thomas. "I think that’s for certain. I certainly hope we can sign him to a long-term deal and keep him here for much longer than I'm here.''

ESPN's Adam Schefter and CBS Sports' Jason LaCanfora have reported that Mack wants out of Cleveland, but sources have told cleveland.com that that's not necessarily true. He did enjoy his meeting with Jaguars general manager Dave Caldwell and coach Gus Bradley and would love to play for them. But if Mack signs the offer sheet, he's well aware that the Browns can match, and he's fully prepared to return to Cleveland and play out the contract.

But he'd have to overcome some of the bad blood that's occurred throughout the negotiation process. For starters, he wasn't thrilled that the Browns waited so long to approach him about a new deal last season instead of wrapping him in the summer. When negotiations didn't go well, the Browns shelved talks and planned to revisit them in January. But those plans were derailed when the Browns fired coach Rob Chudzinski and then CEO Joe Banner and general manager Mike Lombardi.

The meeting in California, which included coach Mike Pettine, general manager Ray Farmer and team president Alec Scheiner, also didn't go well and may have made things worse, a source said. Upon returning home, the Browns designated Mack as their transition player, which rankled him. Not only was he unable to hit the market as an unrestricted free agent, the Browns chose the seldom-used transition tag instead of the franchise tag, which would've paid Mack a guaranteed $11.6 million for 2014 instead of $10.039 million for the transition tender.

Had the Browns franchised him, Mack would've been more motivated to negotiate a long-term deal with the club. Instead, he sought to solicit offers from other teams, and now the Browns are in jeopardy of losing him -- unless they pay up big.

The Jaguars, who don't have any big contracts coming up that they need to extend, have about $25 million in cap space. The Browns, who have about $31 million in cap space, are renegotiating with Pro Bowl cornerback Joe Haden and will be looking to extend tight end Jordan Cameron and receiver Josh Gordon next.

Will they be willing to tie up a ton of cap room for their two-time Pro Bowl center? Within the next six or seven days, Mack will find out.

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